On the Estonian Internet Voting System, IVXV, SoK  and Suggestions

Shymaa M. Arafat

Paper 2025/506

On the Estonian Internet Voting System, IVXV, SoK and Suggestions

Shymaa M. Arafat

Abstract

The Estonian i-voting experience is probably the richest to analyze; a country that is considered a pioneer in digitizing both the government and private sector since 2001, and hence digital voting in 2005, yet there are still some complaints submitted, critics and remarks to consider about the IVXV system. In this paper, we introduce a Systemization of Knowledge of the Estonian IVXV i-voting system and propose some added security enhancements. The presented SoK includes applications implemented by election observers in 2023 & 2024 elections, which, to our knowledge, has never been mentioned and/or analyzed in the academic literature before. The paper also updates the general knowledge about an extra right given to auditors (but not observers) in the June 2024 European election, recent complaints, and about newer solutions suggested by academia in 2024. Finally, we discuss the current system status in 2024 EP elections and propose our own suggestions to some problems stated in the OSCE-ODIHR 2023 report that are still there.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Attacks and cryptanalysis
Publication info: Preprint.
Keywords: IVXV El-Gamal Encryption range proofs Verkle Trees vote buying counted as-casted universal verifiability.
Contact author(s): shar academic @ gmail com
History: 2025-03-19: approved; 2025-03-17: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2025/506
License: CC BY-NC

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2025/506,
      author = {Shymaa M. Arafat},
      title = {On the Estonian Internet Voting System, {IVXV}, {SoK}  and Suggestions},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2025/506},
      year = {2025},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/506}
}